


one more dream (that I cannot make true)

by irene_addling



Category: Actor RPF
Genre: Academy Awards, M/M, abuse of La La Land lyrics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-06 05:31:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10326707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irene_addling/pseuds/irene_addling
Summary: Matt, Ben, and Oscar night (but not the one you're thinking of).





	

He finds Ben in an alley, because of course he does. After all, the man is Batman.

“Didn’t you quit smoking?”

“Yeah," Ben said with a wry smile, "just like I did two years ago, and five years ago, and ten years ago…”

Matt let himself grin. “Fair.”

“Want one?”

Ben’s leaning against the wall, uncaring how the dirt will stain his tux, and Matt realizes that this is going to be a long conversation. At least if he wants to get to the heart of what’s come over Ben, whatever made him leave Kenny and Casey at their table twenty minutes ago, in the middle of their evening of glory—not _their_ first, not by a long shot, but Kenny and Casey’s first, and Ben should know how important celebrating with them was. And not just leaving, reallocating to this place. The Oscars might be glamorous, but this is still LA, and an alley outside the Vanity Fair party is still an alley. (This isn’t even the official-unofficial smoke-break area. That’s the balcony, where Matt had passed the Fox News lady and that kid from _The Social Network_ lighting up an hour ago. Whatever brought Ben out here, it’s not nicotine.)

Instead of voicing any of this, he scoffs. “You know I quit.”

“Yeah, yeah, just because you managed to make it stick. Come on, we’re two old geezers in an alley after midnight, and we just witnessed the Bush v Gore of the Academy. Let yourself have a fuckin’ cigarette.”

He supposes, Ben does have a point. Tonight’s the kind of night where reality feels a little warped. Matt didn’t think he would get any more nights like that, once he turned thirty, but the world is full of surprises.

He sighs and snatches one from the pack. “You’re gonna be the death of me.” 

Ben lets out a huff. “Would’ve killed you a long time ago, if that were the case.”

The first puff goes smoother than it should. Matt knows that when it comes to smoking, even when you quit, you never really quit, and he’ll regret this in the morning—sore throat, dulled focus, fidgeting, his body protesting the nicotine it had finally shaken off. The morning feels like a year from now.

“So,” Matt starts, because he feels like that was Ben passing the ball, somehow, “wanna explain why you left Kenny and your brother to fend off the mob alone?”

Ben shrugged. “They won. They’ve both got hordes congratulating them, they’ll be fine.”

Meryl Streep had approached them the minute they sat down, so Ben has a point, but Matt’s not about to give him that. “Still kind of a dick move.”

“You were there.”

“Please,” Matt scoffs, because he can read Ben like a book and Ben knows it, “you wanted me to follow you.”

“You know I didn’t even produce the movie, right?” Ben replied, tossing the butt of his cigarette aside and immediately lighting another one. “It was your name on that card.”

“It’s _our company,_ Ben. And Kenny likes you. Joked that he might have to write the next one about us, and you know how little he jokes.”

For some reason, that was the wrong thing to say. Ben freezes, cigarette burning too brightly, and for the first time in a very long time they’re both at a loss for words.

Matt throws his head back and blows smoke at the sky instead, looks at the few pinpricks of light—helicopters, probably—visible through the smog. _City of stars,_ he thinks inanely, _are you shining just for me,_ and suddenly there’s a stab of pain in his chest, fast and concentrated and gone like a flash.

“What are you thinking about?” 

“That stupid song. You know, _La La Land,_ the duet.” 

“Ah.” A pause. “I mean, you are a human with functioning eardrums, of course that’s been stuck in your head lately.”

“That and the Moana one, anyone who’s been on the awards circuit is never going to forget it.” Matt snorts. “Feels like I barely napped between this and the last one.”

It’s getting old, really, the Oscar circuit, the six-month scramble of shaking hands. Matt supposes that should make him sad, considering his history with these things. But it was Kenny’s first time, and Casey’s real, serious time, and Matt would do just about anything for either of them to get the boosts they deserve, so—it had been worth it. The two gold men on the table inside have to make it worth it. Right?

“Kenny’s happy.”

“Yeah.”

“Nobody’s ever locking him out of an editing bay again.” He’s a bit too grateful for the change in topic. “Glad we could give it to him, even though Jimmy kind of stole our thunder.”

“Dick move.”

“Dick _unrehearsed_ move.” He’ll have to congratulate Jimmy on that one later. “Can't believe he snuck up on us. I’ve gotta get even with him on that.”

“Sure.”

That’s all, for a minute. Ben finishes his cigarette, lights another. A few sirens ring, but the alley is silent.

“Ben? You’re quiet.”

“How did we get here?”

 _Oh._ Matt thinks, _it’s happening, again._

He'd seen it coming, he’d watched it crash, he’d revived _Greenlight_ and introduced Ben to Kenny and done everything in his power to keep Ben busy, keep history from repeating itself, but— _it’s happening, again._ The last time, it had taken two years and a second Jennifer. Matt doesn’t know how many Jennifers Hollywood has lying around, kept in reserve, but he knows they’re going to need one. Because Matt—when Ben gets into a funk like this, the kind of cloud he can’t shake, the kind of thing that Matt knows has to be genetic or chemical but still resents Ben for falling under, deep down—Matt’s not enough, in times like these. 

_What the fuck kind of a thought is that,_ he wonders, wonders where it came from, and instead of saying it out loud he responds “we got here by walking outside.” 

“No, I mean, _here,_ here.” Ben’s gesturing, sounding a bit frantic. Not taking the bait. Fuck. “You were just thinking how tired you are of the Oscars, I know you, don’t ask how I know that, but I know you were. We…last time, we…you know. We thought we owned the world, after.”

Matt held his breath.

“And now we’re sick of it. Both of us. Twenty years ago to the day, that’s how long it took for all this to get old.”

There’s a derailment somewhere, _not to the exact day,_ there’s a joke somewhere about old age and elitism or maybe even _Birdman._ None of them come out of Matt’s mouth. Matt could write a book of what he’s never said, because with Ben, he’s never had to say it. (He thought.)

“We…”

_We were drunk and elated and had statues in our hands, we’d had enough champagne but not too much—_

“…we were young, Ben.”

_—we were laughing and smiling and giggling and drunk, and you pinned me to the limo and kissed me like we ruled the world._

Matt throws the butt on the ground, steps on it. The headache is already starting, high in his temples.

“Do you think we should tell them? Kenny? Casey?” Ben’s pulling the last dregs from his cigarette, making his relapse last. “The _Moonlight_ kids, maybe? I feel like someone should tell them.”

“Tell them what?” Matt snaps, because he’s suddenly out of sarcasm for _don’t ruin things past their bedtime_ or _Barry’s thirty-seven, the geezer_ or—really, for anything.

“Tell them,” Ben says, “that sometimes, sure, it does get better than this.” He drops his cigarette butt, grinds it into the dirt, two steps behind Matt and doing the exact same thing. 

“But,” he continues, “thing is, it never gets newer. It’s never the same, the feeling.”

 _You pinned me to the limo,_ Matt thinks, _and kissed me like we ruled the world. And Casey was there, just like tonight, and our writer friend who liked to write about us was there, just like tonight. And I ripped your bowtie off to bite your throat and it took us ages to get it back on, and we went into that bathroom down the hall and I fucked you senseless between songs—_

Matt’s throat feels scratchy. He can’t get anything past it. The nicotine, blame the nicotine, if he clears his throat it’ll be just fine.

_—and we thought, and we thought, and we thought—_

Matt can’t speak.

“That you think,” Ben says, casual, forced, “that what you feel the first time, it’s going to last forever. But it doesn’t. It’s a night.”

_A month later, on the Dogma set, when everyone was calling us the Oscar twins and the key grip you and Kevin used to grab drinks with started calling me Mr. Damon. Because I had to realize, if you wouldn’t, that if things were already this different on a set with our friends, they would fall apart on a set with strangers. That if anything got out, we’d both crash and burn—_

Ben gave him a look. “You’re just not going to say anything, aren’t you.”

“Ben—“

“You know,” Ben snapped, sudden and furious, like a cobra lunging out, “ _you never asked._ I figured out why you did it, eventually, but you never asked _me_. And I would’ve waited, for the record. It was worth it.”

Matt opens and closes his mouth again. All that comes out is, “Ben.”

“I’m going home,” Ben snaps, abruptly animated. “Wish Casey my best. I’m taking the car.”

When the door slams behind him, Matt flinches. Suddenly, all he wants is another cigarette. He looks up again and hums a few more bars, _city of stars, there’s so much that I can’t see,_ without really thinking twice.

 _We thought,_ he starts. Corrects himself.

“I thought,” he says, to the empty sky and the empty alley and the faint sounds of the party at his back, “I thought we both knew what would happen, Ben.” 

_That we both knew the story we’d picked._

. . . . . . . . . .

A minute, an hour, a year later, Matt goes back to the ballroom. Some pop song that’s just on the right side of tasteful blares from the speakers, and he has to sidestep a circle of wide-eyed _Moonlight_ crew, who’ve made a breakdancing circle around their statuette. Casey’s alone at the table; Kenny’s departed, maybe to schmooz. Let him enjoy his moment, Matt hears in Ben’s voice, and he scowls despite himself.

“You took a while,” Casey says as he sits down.

“Smoke break.” Casey ordered a whiskey for him while he was out, straight, nothing flashy, thank god. He gulps more than he should.

“I thought you quit?”

He shrugged. “Ben smoked, I watched.”

“He still out there smoking?”

 _The man doesn’t say two words that weren’t in the script all principle photography, and now he’s a chatterbox?_ “He left early.”

Casey nodded. “Right.” 

He doesn’t sound suspicious. Then again, the man just won a statuette for two and a half hours of masking his emotions, so.

Matt is suddenly, brutally, exhausted. His lips sting and his head hurts and there will be track marks on the back of his suit from the alley wall, he’s sure of it, and suddenly he wants nothing more than to go home. Of course, that will mean explaining this lunacy to Lucy, but—god, fourteen years without kissing anyone off-camera who wasn't Lucy, without even thinking about it, and here he was, wide-eyed and stumbling and guilty.

The bathroom down the hall, the bathroom Matt hasn’t used in twenty years despite uncountable galas and three nominations, unlocks. Two kids spill out, one blonde and one brunette, matching Oscars, ill-fitting suits. 

In the five seconds it takes Matt to recognize them as the _La La Land_ songwriters, the room collapses in on itself.

“Matt?” 

The moment’s gone. Casey’s in his ear now, twenty years older and a beard that would scare a Hobbit. The _La La Land_ kids--something and Paul, Matt thinks--disappear into the crowd, clinging to each other’s arms and laughing. The uncertainty in the air, the feeling like the rug has been collectively yanked out from everyone’s feet, is tangible. Matt no longer wonders if it’s just him, but he does wonder, suddenly, if anyone else feels the way it sits on the spine, heavy and oppressive.

It never gets newer, he thinks. You’re never more free.

“Yeah, sorry.”

“Why’d Ben leave?”

“Headache.” 

It’s not quite effortless, the lack of reaction, the noncommittal shrug. But Matt’s an actor, after all. He’s good at that. It’s why he’s here. 

Why _they’re_ here.

It takes two more whiskeys until he can smile convincingly, and the three of them stay until late in the morning, when the last of the dance circle has gone home.

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when I saw the Oscars, said “I’ve got to write about this,” and proceeded to dick around for a month waiting for someone else to do it? 
> 
> I’m a civilian and therefore made 98% this up, but fragments of the goings-on at this year’s Vanity Fair party (including the fact that Ben left early and that delightful Moonlight dance circle) were taken from the both Little Gold Men podcast and [this article.](http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/scenes-from-the-oscar-night-implosion)
> 
> (Also, I promise I have porn for these two in the making. Happy porn! I promise, I _can_ write them happy and do plan to publish it, but that is not this day.)


End file.
